Poor old fiddles..............

GeoffComber · Poor old fiddles..............

Does anybody else recall the bloody swathe Heming (or Hemming or Hemmeling , who cares ! tw@t !) Sorry , wandered off there.........cut through all the really nice old violins when he took over the Instrument stores at Deal ? All the fiddle Profs (Cyril English 'Arry the Lip and Lew Becker et al) were furious ! Apparently some of them were originals from the R.M Artillery Band from yonks ago and the Profs knew them all by name almost and used to make sure the better 'prospects' got a good fiddle . Mr H (the wally) being a trumpeter of some sort didn't know anything about this and cared less it would seem. He sold all the 'old stuff' at silly prices and bought a load of 'New stuff' , which were chinese (or was it Czech ?) orange boxes. Maybe they were from Isreal , they all had 'Jaffa' stamped on the inside. Ask Pete Best or Col. Chris , I think he binned the posh fiddles they were going to get. As I recall he didn't stay there for very long....................To give you some idea of the relative quality in the two band services I was issued a violin in the RAF which was actually made in America by Gibson , somewhat more famous for their guitars usually. I tried it out , re-named it the 'Harley Davison' and never ever played it again .Not once. Yuck. The clarinets were crap as well . They had some reasonable Buffets to start with (not as good as the 926's or 1010's) but they binned all them and bought a load of Yamahas which were just awful.I hasten to add that there is nothing wrong with the top-of -the -range Yamahas but these were anything but. The keys would bend as you played them. Can you imagine what 'Riv Jordan would have done to one of them ? I stuck with my trusty 1010 for the entire time I was in the RAF, not on the march , of course.There is a limit. God knows what they've got now (or the RMB for that matter) probably a load of Suzukis or summat !

Hornblower

:smt046 at that Geoff - feel better now you've got that off your chesticles?

I do know what you mean though. Back in the bad old late 60's an and most of the way through the 70's I and all the other hornists had to make do with Boosey's. The design was based on an Alexander (Bloody good horns) but unfortunately they lost something in the translation. A lot of something.

I was a VERY slow starter and v nearly got booted out of the wing, but I think they were short of hornists and let me slip through to Chatham, where Blue Taylor took me under his wing - he only punched me once, the rest of the time it was a steaming boot to the shin.

Anyway, I didn't realise that the instrument was against me as well as my technique (or lack of it). I had heard that the instrument store had bought a load of Paxmans and got myself on a trip down to Deal to exchange yet another knackered Boosey. (They didn't take to the Grey Funnel Line cruisers too well)

Strolled into the instrument store and there's an ex-dogend Bandmaster in charge - Brian Oates. I didn't hold out much hope for getting one of the fabled Paxmans, but decided to ask anyway.

One of the reasons that I didn't hold out any hope had something to do with a trip back to the ship after a few wets at the Carlsberg brewery in Copenhagen, with a bus full of matelots - a bottle of beer was being passed all the way from the front without being drunk, which struck me as odd.

When it reached me at the back I immediately understood why - it was warm! The next person to take it (a matelot) hadn't watched its progress up the coach as I had and thought it was me trying to get him to drink the warm 'beer'. He then proceeded to pour it down the bell of my horn. (All this was, apparently, being watched by Brian Oates at the front)

What was a poor horn player to do upon seeing the golden liquid being poured into his bell? Well, that's too easy to figure... I pointed the hooter in his general direction, put the mouthpiece to my lips and did what any self-respecting horn player will do - blew as hard as I could!!!

The back of the bus erupted as the golden shower went everywhere.

I laughed.

Brian didn't - he was bellowing my name at the top of his voice and I just carried on laughing and not looking in his general direction. The bus was Harry toppers with mixed bandys and matelots, so there was no way he was going to be able to get to me.

So - a year or so on, what chance did I have of getting one of the Paxmans that allegedly existed?

Exactly.

"Don't know where you got that from, we haven't got any." Says Brian.

Well, he was a bandmaster, I was bound to believe him wasn't I?

So he said, "You can have any one of the horns from that shelf" pointing at the bottom one, "That shelf only!"

Now, anyone that knows me, knows that he really shouldn't have said that last line. The second his back was turned I started ferreting around at horns on other shelves - but I couldn't find the Holy Grail Paxmans and nothing that vaguely resembled a decent horn of any description. So I got a bit disheartened.

I began to think that someone had been winding me up, so gave up and started to open some grotty old cases (but still not on the bottom shelf!)

EUREKA!!!

SIR! SIR! (Sounds of footsteps heading in my general direction)

"What, have you found one?"

"Not exactly sir, but I have found this. It looks like a Paxman to me and seems to have been put in this old and rather decrepit case - how do you think it got there?"

Oh boy, you should have seen his face! Splutter, gulp etc just doesn't cut it - the wiley bugger had hidden them away from me deliberately.

I didn't get one.

Not until the Queen came to BRNC and Bandy Dave Hough decreed that mine and Steve Dennis' horns were not fit to be seen by HM so despatched us to Deal.

THAT was then when I realised that the quality of the instument makes a massive difference to the quality of the music.

How I ever learnt to play on those old Boosey's is beyond me. I've got an old recording (Readers Digest - Victory at Sea) with me playing First, Wally Waters on second and Yogi Barfoot on third and I wonder how on earth I managed to hit the one note on it that I got right!!!!

Night night, thank you for reading this far. (If you got this far

)

Co-admin

Stu,
I've been saying that about Bugles and Eb TRumpets for 26 years, do they listen?

(They tried to listen to me and gave up

)

Hornblower

Hey Deli

Paxman don't make bulges

But if Carlsberg did....

Stuey

Aaron Aardvark

Who cares who makes the bulges......as long as they blow
Saying that even on a Getzen they wouldn't sound any better

Not that Getzen make bulges.....i dont think anyway.

I asked for a Getzen flugel once and they said *%%^$£&&****

Hornblower

Aaron Aardvark

Yeh I know.....I cant spell. Its been a while

dagun